Solo guitar

Friday 9 October, 7.30pm

Simon Davies guitar

Simon Davies received his Honours Degree from the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester and has received glowing reviews from International Record Review and Gramophone magazines for his recordings. A regular with the RSC 'band', recent productions he has played for include Venus and Adonis and Anthony and Cleopatra. As a soloist, Simon has represented the UK in the European Young Musicians' Concert and the London International Guitar Festival. He is a featured classical artist on Cunard's 'Three Queens'. Simon's wide-ranging programme, spanning 500 years of the classical guitar repertoire, includes pieces from Elizabethan England's foremost song composer, John Dowland, and Paraguyan, Agustín Barrios' haunting La Catedral.

Saxophone & Organ

Friday 18 September 2015, 7.30pm

Andy Scott saxophone - Nicholas Kok organ

Andy Scott and Nicholas Kok often work together, mostly in concerts that contain at least some element of improvisation. Andy, a member of the famous Apollo Saxophone Quartet, and Nicholas, a freelance conductor who has worked in many European Opera Houses, both passionately enjoy the buzz and thrill of improvised music-making. This performance takes as its surprising starting point a collection of hymns, most from the The English Hymnal. Nicholas was Organ Scholar at New College, Oxford and these were his daily bread and butter while for Andy they offer a whole new world of inspiration: the result will be fascinating! The programme will also include some folk-rooted pieces, such as The Water Is Wide and A Wayfaring Stranger, composed and/or arranged by them.

Photo of Andy Scott by Asadour Guzelian and Nicholas Kok by Andrew Price

Maxwell Quartet

Friday 3 June 2016, 7.30pm

Hailed as "one of the front-runners" in Young UK Ensembles, the Maxwell Quartet has a reputation for delighting audiences with their "exhilarating performances". They are rapidly emerging as a dynamic and exciting force in the chamber music world, with an unparalleled drive and commitment to expanding the string quartet repertoire. Formed in 2010, the quartet's members are outstanding graduates of the Royal College of Music, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and University of Oxford. They perform frequently throughout the UK and further afield at major venues and festivals, and are Park Lane Group Young Artists 2015. The centerpiece of this concert will be the first of Beethoven's late quartets - Op 127 in E flatmajor.

FB Pocket Orchestra

Friday, 20 May 2016, 7.30pm

Blues, Ragtime, Hot Jazz, Songs and Dances from long ago!

Working backwards from the 1930s, the FB Pocket Orchestra explores repertoire that formed the embryo of what is now known as popular music. The three members originally began playing together simply as an exercise in exploring heritage repertoire - taking on a few informal performances and recording dates as schedules allowed. The FBPO became an 'official' project in Spring 2012 and released its first album in October that year. The aims of the orchestra are to present a contemporary slant on popular acoustic music from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Atmospheric, yet vibrant, this charming collection of songs will make you wish you had been born some 100 years ago. The style, glamour and 'fabulousness' of this era is captured beautifully on the album. Jazz FM Review October 1st 2012

Julian Perkins - Clavichord

Friday 13 May 2016, 7.30pm

Used throughout the Baroque and Classical eras as a private tool for composing, practice and meditation, the clavichord was amongst the first of the historical keyboard instruments to be revived in the 1890s by Arnold Dolmetsch. Its intimate charms have mesmerised musicians from CPE Bach to Oscar Peterson. In this recital Julian Perkins shows just why that is by embracing a range of works from composers as diverse as Froberger and Herbert Howells, in addition to pieces by J S Bach and his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann.

TICKETS (each concert) £14, £12 concessions*; £4 under 18s

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